Odd Year Out… Even Year In

WED., DEC. 31, 1997, 8:34 AM
A.S.C., F.P.C.

Using linear time, and considering it to have some reality, I’ll note that this is the last day of 1997, which shall never be again. What you have done in this year has been done… and what was not done cannot be done, in this year. Yes, there is some reality in linear time. Consider, however, My title, above. It does not designate years as old or young and new; this, again, is linear. Instead I use odd and even, which are recurring or circular. There is no judgment… just odd giving way to even.

It has been an important year for you, even if you haven’t considered it particularly noteworthy. Your fulltime career as an educator is over. Obviously this is linear, for it began in the Fall of 1948 and ended in July of 1997… 48 years (with one year out as a full-time graduate student). Yet you also have some sense that this career also has a circular quality to it; you have been an educator before this life, and you hope to have one or more further opportunities to guide learning.

Because you have not cut yourself off from the University, as some of your colleagues have done, the transition has been a slow, gradual one. You still have an office, and so, once again, you will have to decide what to maintain in your new office and what to take home. But it is good to have to assess what you “keep”, from time to time. This, then, involves an assessment of who you have been, who you are now, and who you shall be in the time ahead.

You have been a professor, one who professes in some quite unique ways. You have influenced a number of students, and it has been fun to do so. Part of this is your willingness to profess that there is a spiritual dimension to health – of individual humans and of cultures. Further, you have conducted your classes in ways that exhibit and encourage spirit. Rightfully, you have been pleased as this has developed in these last years of your career. This is who you have been, and chances are you will not be this again. (9:04 / 9:10)

I like the term you are using to describe who you are becoming – a semi-monk. You will still be a husband, father, and grandfather (even a son and a brother, though not in regular contact). You will have a few professional responsibilities, you still may go to conventions, and you’ll be aware of the news of the day and of civic and church opportunities and tasks. You will have some friends who will not want you to be too monkish.

As a monk you shall have more awareness and more appreciation of the spiritual nature of all that you do. You will feel My presence in new and expanded ways. There will be a new rhythm to your life (that hasn’t developed yet). It must take into account the reality that your slowness increases. Thus you must attempt less, lest you become frenetic in trying to do what no longer is possible. Lists are helpful; I have no objection to lists to guide your days, but I also recommend some days when you just do what “feels right”… to your spirit. Let Me be your “list” for such days.

Get to know your Farm better, letting your spirit appreciate what various portions of it are like in each season of the year. You have allowed some of it to “get away from you”, so that should be “reclaimed”. Approach the tasks you have pledged, to Lenore as a gift, with full, positive spirit. Your Farm dwelling place can be a more spiritual domain with less clutter. I promise.

Some years of active earth life remain for you. Use what you have been and have done as useful remembrances. Your new rhythm shall be an artful combination of just “being” and readying yourself for the “spirit world”. I can’t guarantee you the years that you desire as a rather fully functioning human, but chances are good that you’ll have what you are planning for. Just know… that whatever happens to you, all experiences are capable of nurturing your spirit, and this is what I want.